Colored images are formed by the reaction of dye forming couplers (referred to hereinafter as "couplers") with primary aromatic amine developing agents which have been oxidized by color development after the silver halide photographic photosensitive material has been imagewise exposed. In general, yellow, magenta and cyan colored images which have a complementary color relationship are used to reproduce blue, green and red colors using the subtractive method of color reproduction. Phenol derivatives or naphthol derivatives are often used as couplers for forming the cyan image. In color photography, the color forming couplers may be added to the developer or they may be incorporated in a photosensitive emulsion layer or another color image forming layer, and a non-diffusible dye is formed by reaction with the oxidized form of a color developing agent which is formed by development.
The reaction between the coupler and the color developing agent occurs at the active site of the coupler. Couplers which have a hydrogen atom at the active site are four equivalent couplers, which is to say, stoichiometrically, they require 4 mol of silver halide with development nuclei in order to form 1 mol of dye. On the other hand, couplers which have a group which can be eliminated as an anion at the active site are two equivalent couplers, which is to say these couplers only require stoichiometrically 2 mol of silver halide which has development nuclei to form 1 mol of dye. Thus, the amount of silver halide in the photosensitive material can generally be reduced and the film thickness can be reduced relative to that of a four equivalent coupler, the processing time for the photosensitive material can be shortened and the sharpness of the colored image which is formed is also improved.
Of these cyan couplers, the absorption of the dye which is formed using naphthol type couplers is at a sufficiently long wavelength and there is little overlap with the absorption of the magenta dye image. Moreover, since these couplers have a low to a high coupling activity with the oxidized form of a color developing agent they are widely used in photographic applications centered around color negative films. However, the dye images obtained from naphthol type couplers are reduced by ferrous ions which accumulate in fatigued bleach baths and bleach-fix baths and tend to fade (this is known as "reduction fading") and the fastness of the image to heat is poor. As a result, there is a great demand for improvement.
On the other hand, phenol type cyan couplers which have a p-cyanophenylureido group in the 2-position and a carbonamido group which is a ballast group (a group which renders the molecule resistant to diffusion) in the 5-position are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,333,999. The dye formed using these couplers has a deep color shifted by association in the film and they provide colored images which have an excellent hue and provide excellent fastness. As a result, they are now being used widely as couplers to replace the above-described naphthol type cyan couplers.
However, although the dyes formed from phenol type couplers which have a ureido group in the 2-position provide a desirable hue in the high density areas, the peak absorption wavelength (.lambda..sub.max) deviates to the short wavelength side in the low density areas and there is the disadvantage in that color reproduction is adversely affected. The combined use of 1-naphthol couplers with the above phenol type couplers is disclosed in JP-A-59-46644 and the combined use of a 5-amido-1-naphthol coupler with the above phenol type couplers is disclosed in JP-A-62-75444 as methods of overcoming this problem. (The term "JP-A" as used herein signifies an "unexamined published Japanese patent application").
However, the demands for photographic photosensitive materials have become more severe recently and the demand for higher coupling reactivity and higher dye absorption densities have continued.